Luca Sint, sport director of Vini Zabou-Blad-KTM, was fined 500 Swiss francs for failing to hand Giovanni Visconti a water bottle from his team car in the last 10km of stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia.

In a similar situation at this year's Tour de France, Julien Alaphilippe of Dečuninck-Quick Step lost the yellow jersey after receiving a 20-second time penalty for reaching for a bottle in the last 20 km of stage 5, the third Giro on Monday. stage's mountain stage, the food and water "limit" was set at 10km.

According to Vini Zabou-Blado-KTM, Sint was in the team car of Visconti and fellow breakaway rider Jonathan Caicedo (EF Pro Cycling) with around 11km to go in an attempt to win the stage, when the race director's car dropped out of the breakaway group and the other He said he did not have permission to pass the team car.

Television footage shows Sinto gesturing from the car window to give Visconti a water bottle. Knowing that if he gave it to Visconti, it might antagonize him, Cinta then threw the bottle on the ground in frustration.

For this reaction, Sinta was fined CHF 500 by the UCI and later apologized.

"With 10km to go, the feeding was over and Sint tried to pass water to Visconti with 11km to go, but the jury would not allow him to pass the rider who had dropped out of the breakaway and his car. So he was nervous on a stage that was so important for us. He is sorry about that," the team wrote on social media.

The stage took place in Sicily, and the team's main sponsors, wine brand Vini Zabu and Visconti, are both from Sicily, so a stage win on their home turf would have been especially celebratory.

"It would have been a dream to win here," Visconti said after finishing second on Mount Etna, according to the team website.

"I wanted to be part of the breakaway this morning to please my supporters and my team, who have always been on my side, even if the results haven't been there for the last few months. [Unfortunately, Caicedo got ahead of me in the last few kilometers, but it was still a good performance. I hope to use this result as a starting point to accomplish something special.